How can you set up a workflow to trigger on a variable date

Michelle Barnett

In an onboading form for new hires, I want to set up a trigger to fire 160 days after the person's hire date but I'm not going to know what that is, so I can't use the date field to trigger because I'm being prompted to choose a date from my form.

I tried to trigger on the hire =date +1 day to see if that would work, but I can't leverage formulas in the automation.

Does anyone have any ideas how to trigger a workflow when you based on a future, variable date?

thanks

Michelle

Michelle Barnett

Bassam,

Thank you! I think that's going to work. Good thinking. I'll let you know.

Michelle

Genevieve P.

Hi @Bassam Khalil & @Michelle Barnett

Quick note - the trigger here is set to when the "Hire Date" value is changed, but this will only change when the row is first created. This means there won't be anything to tigger the workflow once 160 days have passed, even though it meets the condition of this workflow.

You could either work within the Date Based workflow's days:

Or potentially using a Date Column with a formula in the sheet as the trigger for the workflow. Michelle, I answered your other post with my personal preferred solution, here.

Cheers,

Genevieve

Michelle Barnett

I'm trying that now. Thanks

Bassam Khalil

Hi @Michelle Barnett

Hope you are fine, please try to add a helper column to calculate how many days passed since the hiring date till today call it "Days Passed After Hiring" and use the following formula as a column format formula to calculate:

=TODAY() - [Hire Date]@row

then use the following workflow to trigger the alert:

Michelle Barnett

Bassam,

Thank you! I think that's going to work. Good thinking. I'll let you know.

Michelle

Genevieve P.

Hi @Bassam Khalil & @Michelle Barnett

Quick note - the trigger here is set to when the "Hire Date" value is changed, but this will only change when the row is first created. This means there won't be anything to tigger the workflow once 160 days have passed, even though it meets the condition of this workflow.

You could either work within the Date Based workflow's days:

Or potentially using a Date Column with a formula in the sheet as the trigger for the workflow. Michelle, I answered your other post with my personal preferred solution, here.

Cheers,

Genevieve

Michelle Barnett

Yes, you're right, I couldn't get the workflow to send a message. I tried the other suggestion about the date column and that didn't fire a message either. I can't use the trigger you've documented above because it's too late. The alert has to go before 180 days.

Paul Newcome

I would suggest a date type column with

=[Hire Date]@row + 160

Then set up your workflow to trigger based on this date column.

Michelle Barnett

I'm trying that now. Thanks

Genevieve P.

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/292652#Comment_292652

Great minds think alike, @Paul Newcome ! 😉

That's exactly what I suggested on the other post. @Michelle Barnett, this is the link to the other post if you want to see screen capture examples.

Michelle Barnett

It worked - Finally 😀 that was a lot hard than I thought I was going to be.

Paul Newcome

@Genevieve P Haha. I didn't even see that. Ugh.

Michelle Barnett

Thank you all for your input on this. I appreciate your help.